Faithful unto Death

Directed by Ivars Zviedris

Documentarian Ivars Zviedris began filming Faithful unto Death after meeting a woman who unknowingly carried a surgeon's tool in her abdomen for 27 years, following an appendectomy. This discovery led Zviedris to explore the resilience of pensioners in rural areas, who survive by forming cooperative living arrangements, sharing a single household. These arrangements, driven by financial necessity, reveal the struggles of individuals who must live together despite fractured relationships, pooling their pensions to cover basic expenses. Central to the story is Mara, a woman with a tragic history of lost husbands, who remained with her last partner, Ivars, for 24 years, bound by their mutual need to survive.